1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to awards ribbons and an improved fastener for attaching a medal or any other award display device to the award ribbon.
2. Description of the Background Art
Personal awards that can be attached to a person's clothing or hand-held for achievement, whether serious or humorous, are well known in the prior art. One such type award is traditionally constructed of a fabric material, like a ribbon, which can be mounted around a person's neck or pinned to garments to show a particular achievement. Further, the decorative awards ribbon or ribbons may include one or more awards to show the specific achievements for particular award presentations. In such a device, the ribbon may be a loop of narrow fabric band, decoratively colored, having a stitched fastener for receiving an award integrally connected to a predetermined portion of the ribbon. The construction of adding an award fastening ring or bar integrated into the ribbon by sewing techniques is time consuming and costly. Typically, an additional fastener must be made and attached to the award support that has been integrated into the ribbon by sewing. Finally, the award is then attached to a clip-like fastener, which itself has been attached to the award fastener attached to the ribbon. All of this is an expensive and time consuming structure to attach the award to the ribbon.
The act of attaching award fasteners to awards ribbons has always been a time consuming and labor intensive process. The prior art shows awards ribbons having metal eyelets at their ends for receiving a ring or clip. The ring or clip has to be twisted open for receiving an award. The labor, time, and cost involved with this process has proved to be ineffective.
One of the latest developments in the industry was to replace the eyelet by a ribbon neck for receiving a jump ring and a separate, flexible clip. This also proved to be ineffective because it added the cost of the separate, flexible clip to the manufacturing of the ribbon.
Therefore, there exists a need for an inexpensive and cost effective awards ribbon having a fastener which combines the functions of a jump ring and a clip and allows for an easy way to attach an award to an awards ribbon without any labor intensive steps. The present invention incorporates these characteristics and eliminates the problems found in the prior art.
There also exists a need for an inexpensive and cost effective awards ribbon having a fastener which allows for free rotation of the award.